IT and internet industry

Internet sales by businesses in the UK (total value and as a percentage of all retail sales) and the percentage of businesses that have a website and broadband connection. These figures indicate the importance of the internet to UK businesses.

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Highlights

What's in the bulletin?

E-commerce sales by businesses in the UK non-financial sector with 10 employees or more were £560 billion in 2017, rising sharply from £484 billion in 2016; this year-on-year increase of 16% is the largest since 2011.

Growth in total e-commerce sales has been driven by an increase in website sales of £131 billion since 2011, while electronic data interchange (EDI) sales have declined by £61 billion.

Including businesses with fewer than 10 employees, e-commerce sales were made up of £300 billion website sales and £286 billion EDI sales

Articles

In 2014, as the consequence of a 2013 European Union e-commerce taskforce, chaired by Lord Young of Graffham, the Office for National Statistics began a project to consider how it could contribute to the monitoring of e-commerce nationally. This report proposes the use of an indicator set, combining a dashboard approach alongside an interactive graphic, and sets out some potential future developments.